BOOKS
Just for Now takes a kid's-eye view
Story explains legal system with foster care in mind
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle
Jackie Crowley buttonholed Karim Kafray at a volunteer appreciation dinner in the fall of 2003, about a month after Kafray started working for Child Advocates as development director. Crowley told him she had an idea for an educational tool for children in foster care. Kafray didn't take her seriously.
Kafray was still learning his way around the office, but he knew that volunteers often have great ideas but lack the time, money or dedication to follow through.
He was still skeptical after he met with Crowley and Barbara Abell and heard their proposal for a picture book explaining legal terms and the court system. He sent them on their way, telling them to pull some research together.
"I thought they were cuckoo," Kafray recalled.
"I realize they weren't kooks when they presented a business plan. They had pulled everything we had talked about together," Kafray said. "They had already talked to a lot of people in the community, and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive."
Kafray agreed there was a need for the book, but he was still pessimistic. For the quality product and free distribution that Crowley and Abell envisioned, the project needed to raise $250,000 to $300,000.
"How is this going to happen?" Kafray wondered.
Abell understands Kafray and Child Advocate's skepticism. "In fairness to them, we were two people that they didn't know very well, and we said we were going to do a book. They must see little volunteers all the time who say they are going to do these mammoth projects."
When Crowley retired in 2002, she moved on to her dream jobs: volunteering as a court-appointed child advocate and rocking sick babies at Texas Children's Hospital.
In her first case for Child Advocates Inc., Crowley was matched with three kids, ages 3, 5 and 7, to speak on their behalf to judges, attorneys, caseworkers, educators and foster parents. Feeling helpless trying to explain the legal process to the children, she looked for a simple book to help the children understand the situation.
Finding no guides, Crowley persuaded Abell that they should make it their mission to develop a book that would explain terms such as lawyer, judge, foster parents and hearing.
"We literally started with a blank yellow pad," Abell said.
As the ball got rolling, Crowley and Abell brought in writer Kimberly Morris to pull the story together with input from volunteers, former foster kids and friends.
Morris appreciated the duo's professional attitude and became part of the team. There were many discussions about the cast of characters.
In Just for Now: Kids and the People of the Court, Rachel and her brother Gilbert, who have been home alone for a week, meet a Child Protective Services caseworker who takes them to a foster home. The children meet several authority figures. They also meet other foster kids. One boy's parents are in jail. Another girl has abusive parents and needs a new home. Rachel and Gilbert's mother has an addiction problem.
The storybook defines legal words on each page. Plus, there's an extended glossary in the back.
"The original story had the kids going home, but going home is not always the outcome. So they don't go home, but there's a hopeful ending. Mom is working on it," Morris said.
The book cuts through the jargon, provides adults a script for talking to kids about what's happening and gives the kids something more substantial than a pamphlet or fact sheet, Morris said.
Kafray said he thinks adults will benefit most from the story because it humanizes and demystifies what a child advocate does. As interest among counselors, librarians, family-practice lawyers, children's social services workers and police organizations and child groups across the country grows, Kafray finally sees what Crowley tried to tell him in 2003.
"It is something that has had a more far reaching impact than we anticipated," Kafray said, "That's because it's going to impact a whole lot more children than I thought at the beginning.
"Jackie and Barbara had the vision all along."